Decide what to buy: the Reevoo.com blog

Reevoo’s First Giveaway

Hours after Reevoo announced that the Tesco Value MC-907 Hi-Fi had trounced the opposition in the first Reevoo Customer Awards the machine was sold out across the Country!

In an effort to prevent enormous public outcry Reevoo are giving away one copy of the glimmering gold champion of music lovers’ eardrums!

There’s a catch though. Not just anyone is worthy of the public’s favourite Hi-Fi, you’ll have to prove it truly deserves pride of place on your mantlepiece this summer, and you’re going to have to think creatively if you want to win.

At Reevoo we want the last remaining model to go to the most deserving person out there so show us how much you need the thumping bass in your life by sending us your finest picture, poem or paragraph showing and explaining why you’re truly worthy of Britain’s greatest Hi-Fi. We expect to see air guitar pictures, romantic song lyrics and at least one person brave enough to dress up like someone from The Archers.

A Hi-Fi is nothing without music so we’re giving away the new White Lies album To Lose My Life too.

How to Enter

Being big fans of all things internet we would like to invite you to use your favourite blog site or Twitter to communicate your passion for this mighty prize to us!
Just answer this simple question:

‘Why do you or someone you know deserve to win a new Hi-Fi?’

Blog entries

If you blog your entry make sure you link directly to this post at http://www.reevoo.com/decidewhattobuy/2009/05/win-britains-favourite-hi-fi

and feel free to use images to accompany your post.

Twitter

If you use Twitter begin your tweet with

@reevoo I need to #winahifi because…

By doing this we can keep track of all entrants. You can also search Twitter for #winahifi and see how you compare to the competition!

If you want to add an image to show how much you need the Hi-Fi you can use the popular Twitter image uploading service, Twitpic.

What if I’ve never used a blog or Twitter?

If you’ve never blogged or used Twitter before don’t worry, it’s easy! Simply visit Blogger to get started blogging or Twitter to start writing your own Tweets.

Closing Date

The closing date for the competition is 3pm 15/05/09. Be sure to check back on Decide What To Buy the following day to find out if you’re the lucky winner.

Please follow this link for full Terms and Conditions.

Last week we looked at the top digital cameras of 2008 and this week we bring you MP3 players. There are plenty of them around but which ones are any good?

We’ve looked at the most popular ones - the ones that get the most attention on the web and the highest rated to see how they fare when people get them home.

At the moment, everyone’s after the New 16 GB Apple iPod Nano. It gets great reviews for its design and size but, as with most Apple products, consumers would like more battery life.

Here are the MP3 players getting the most attention at the moment:

1.       New Apple iPod Nano 16GB

2.       Apple iPod Shuffle 2GB 2^ND Generation

3.       Sony Walkman NWZA815B 2GB

4.       Archos GMINI 402

5.       Philips SA167 512MB

And these players are the highest rated by consumers who have all bought the products:

1.       Creative Zen 8GB MP3 Player

2.       Sony NWZA816 4GB MP3 Player

3.       Samsung YP-P2JCB 8GB

4.       Apple iPod Touch 8GB

5.       Samsung YP-T10J 2/4 GB MP3 Player

The Creative Zen 8GB MP3 Player gets great reviews. Consumers hardly have a bad word to say about it and praise its design, battery life and sound quality.

Here are some of the things reviewers had to say:

“excellent all rounder sound, vision, size and value for money” Debs, Co. Durham

“i absolutely love it, the sound and vision quality is exceptional” Nicola, Whitley Bay

If you’re strapped for cash but want to invest in something decent, the Samsung YP-T10J is an absolute bargain at £30. It’s rated 9/10 and seriously impresses reviewers:

“this MP3 player has just about everything you could possibly want and very user friendly. The sound is clear and crisp and the photo/video mode is excellent.” Denise, Norwich

“its awesome, looks good, good sound and battery life, cute, not too common like an ipod” Anonymous

“This MP3 player is capable of superb sound reproduction (though not perhaps with the supplied headphones). It’s easy to find your way around the menu and I think it must be one of the slimest MP3 players around.” Eric, Perthshire

If you’re not impressed with any of these, there are loads of other MP3 players to choose from.

If you’re mad about music and own a load of old-school LPs, you might like this week’s Gadget Watch. You can now easily convert your old vinyls into super new MP3s and take them everywhere with you on your iPod.

The LP Dock will let you transfer songs either through your PC via the USB cable or direct to your iPod. If you go through your PC, the Gracenote MusicID techonology that comes with this genius device will automatically retrieve all of the artist, album and song info for you. And no worries if your vinyls are a little scratched, this software will sort all that out for you too!

You can also use the LP Dock to play your LPs through your HiFi system. Pretty cool, hey?! You can pick one up for £129 or $259.95.

There’s no need to worry about being music-less when you’re on the move again. These solar powered headphones with FM radio will run for up to 20 hours when fully charged. And one hour of sunlight will provide one-three hours listening. There are no wires to get in the way of walking, running, or whatever you fancy doing. Just music. The radio has a powerful internal antenna and extended base so you can keep everyone else entertained at the same time – sure to be popular on trains. And it recharges itself even when you’re listening to it, as long as you’re in the company of sun.

Heads big and small will love these headphones because the adjustable headband will accommodate all sizes. Plus you’re doing your bit for the environment at the same time. You can pick up a pair here for £19.95 with global shipping.

Following on from our fun iPod docks post, we’ve got a cracking set of iPod skins and cases for you today.

I had to start with the iFrogz Tadpole iPod Case, which is meant to be for children but I was semi-tempted. It’s bright and extra shock absorbent so that you don’t have to worry about little ones (or slightly larger ones), dropping them. It also means that you’ll never lose it in your handbag…It’s 100% coated silicon so that it repels dust and lint.  This is compatible with 30, 60 or 80GB iPod Classics and will set you back £24.99.

If you’re a more stylish individual, may I suggest this leather case for your Classic? Toro’s Treo leather case has a clear plastic screen protector so that you never lose sight of your music and a rotating belt clip that (I didn’t write this bit) “lets you experiment the best fit to look as snazzy as possible”.  They’re £12.99 and come in pink and brown leather.

If you like a patterned case, there’s bunch of cool cases called Gelaskins. They come in different sizes for different types of iPod. This one is the Red Robot design but you can be as bold or as understated as you like because there are loads of different designs. This 2nd Generation Nano case is £9.99 and available over at iPod World.

For flashy types, the Griffin Technology disko is the case for you. As well as the protective, tough polycarbonate shell, the LEDs flash and swirl away in motion-activated light sequences. Forget disco balls, this can control a party all on its own. They’re £16.95 from MacHeaven.

For the cautious amongst you, why not keep your iPod from thieves by disguising it as a…hymn book? The case is designed for 30, 60 and 80GB Classics but if you have any other make that’s about the same size, it should work for them too.  For £15,’cherishing’ your music has never been so easy. (sorry).

If you’re debating over whether or not to get an iPod or another brand of player, you can read the MP3 player reviews to help you decide. If you’re set on getting an iPod, check out all of the iPod reviews so that you can find the best one for you.

There’s a real treat in this week’s Green Piece. You may have heard about it already but I thought it still needed a mention. Wind-up radio king Trevor Baylis has upped the ante to bring us a wind-up media player. We had an interesting stat about batteries in a previous Green Piece - just to recap, according to WRAP, around 600 million UK household batteries (22,000 tonnes) – the equivalent weight of 110 Jumbo Jets – are sent to landfill unnecessarily every year. So anything that we can do to alleviate the environment of that burden would be a good thing. That’s why this media player is so great. For one minute of winding, you get 40 minutes of audio play. When fully charged, which you can also do through the USB port on your computer, you’ll get around 20 hours of constant music, or around 10 hours of video play.

It only has a 2GB memory but you can use SD cards and it’s got a 1.8 inch, full colour screen. OK, so it’s not the biggest of screens but if you’re all for helping the environment, it’s not too much of a sacrifice.

Back onto the positives – It’s got a FM radio, it can act as an audio and voice recorder and it can even charge your mobile phone. If that wasn’t enough, it also has an awesome torch!

I think this is a great green gadget that will solve the endless MP3 charging saga in the evenings. Just think of all the batteries and hassle you’ll be saving. They’re £129.95 at the Ethical Superstore.

Following on from our dodgy designs story last week, I came across more catastrophes in the MP3 department. The poor people that purchased a 2GB Matsui MAT120 definitely had a few negative things to say about their purchase.

From a massive 248 shoppers reviews on Reevoo, this MP3 player only receives an overall score of 5.3/10. Complaints seem to focus on the fact that the player deletes all of your songs on its own, its terrible battery life and how long the player actually lasted without breaking. Not good news here.

Although it seemed like a bargain – you can pick one up for around £25 - Paul from York pretty much sums up everybody else’s experience when he says “Doesn’t last more than a month. Bought 2 of these both did the same thing, after a month the memory goes, and you are unable to switch it on… You get what you pay for in the end”.

And just when I thought this was a one-off, I came across the 6GB Logik HDD60. This may have a higher score of 5.7/10 from 51 shoppers who bought it but it also had its fair share of negative comments. The biggest problems seemed to be that it’s pretty useless when you try to put music onto it – not great for an MP3 player - and that the battery life is also useless.

So if you want a MP3 player that works this summer, here’s two wasy to save you some money. If you want to find a quality MP3 player, make sure you read MP3 reviews first so that you can avoid the problems these poor shoppers had. At the moment, the top MP3 player is the 7GB Sony Walkman NWZA818. It has 49 reviews and a rating of 9.1/10.